Late Checkout

by Carol J. Perry

  “Let’s roll. The cart looks really cute, Marty.” Francine pushed the contraption toward the outer door.

  “Just getting in the spirit,” Marty deadpanned. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

  We actually made very good time getting through the pumpkin partiers to the pet shop. Rhonda had been so right about the incredible cuteness of animals in costumes, and I could tell that Francine was loving it. The manager of the store showed us which animals might not mind being picked up. Marty turned out to be our own personal “pet whisperer,” and easily coaxed a spotted pup dressed as a butterfly to hold a pose while Francine manned the camera. She retied a baby bonnet on a sweet gray tabby kitten, handed her to me, and wiggled her fingers, causing the kitty-baby to look, wide-eyed and adorable, directly into Francine’s close-up lens. So it went. A poodle as an unlikely giraffe, a dachshund clearly embarrassed in hula skirt and lei, a fluffy white kitten in pink-and-gray mouse ears. The models were all rescue animals and I gave a heartfelt pitch for adopting these wonderful creatures. I was sorely tempted to take the black kitten dressed as Batman home with me, but resisted. Maybe someday. Not now.

  We shot a good twenty minutes worth of video. We said our reluctant goodbyes to the animals and trundled our equipment back out onto the sidewalk. Marty promised to edit it down to a few two-minute segments for use every day until Halloween. “You can record a couple of quick voice-overs about adopting fur-babies when we get back to the station, okay Moon?”

  “Sure. No problem.” Francine shot some more footage of the crowds along Essex Street, focusing on some clever, some beautiful, some scary costumes. I thought about what Agnes had said about the actors and show hosts at WICH-TV in the old days donning costumes and stage makeup to play two or three or maybe more different parts. These days Doan just had everybody do as many jobs as they could—wigs and fake noses or not.

  Chapter 30

  Back at the station I watched over Marty’s shoulder as she skillfully edited the seeming miles of footage Francine had shot. Like magic, she produced four different two-minute pieces showing the very cutest animals, the very most adorable poses, and the very most original costumes. I used almost the same hastily prepared script for each one and within an hour I was ready to follow the pumpkin path homeward.

  The late afternoon sun cast a pretty glow on Winter Street and as soon as I approached our front door I saw O’Ryan at the long side window, nose against the glass, waiting to greet me. It makes me happy every time. I unlocked the door, paused for the expected deep-throated purr and wrap around the ankles welcome, picked up the beautiful and uncostumed cat, and started up the stairs.

  I was halfway up the first flight when Aunt Ibby appeared in the foyer. “I’m glad you’re home Maralee,” she said. “Can you spare a minute?”

  “Of course.” I put O’Ryan down and retraced my steps, following my aunt across her living room and into the kitchen, the cat scampering ahead of us.

  “What’s up?” I asked. “Is anything wrong?”

  “Oh, no. I’m fine,” she said. “Here. Sit down. I was about to have a nice glass of sherry. Join me?”

  I sat on one of the counter stools and O’Ryan opted for a nearby cushioned captain’s chair. “Sure. Why not?”

  She filled two wineglasses and sat opposite me. “I’ve been thinking,” she said, “about Robert Oberlin.”

  I sipped the wine. “Thinking what?”

  “Thinking that Rob had a pretty good motive for Willie’s murder.”

  “Rob? How? Why?”

  “The horses,” she said. “Did you see how gently he stroked Prince Valiant, how he slipped him a sugar cube? He loves them.”

  “Well, sure he does.” I agreed. “He runs a stable. It’s a lot of work. Hard, messy, dirty work. Nobody would do it if they didn’t love horses.”

  “Wee Willie didn’t love horses,” she pointed out. “Wee Willie abused them—apparently for a long time before he was caught. One of them even died. Right on the track.” She shook her head and put her wineglass down hard enough so that some of the liquid splashed onto the counter. “Horrible. He was a horrible person, Maralee. And he did it for money. Ranger Rob must have been heartbroken. And furious.”

  “I’m sure he was. I’m furious too, and I just learned about it.” I took a paper napkin from a diner-type chrome dispenser and wiped up the spilled wine. “But Rob wasn’t in the library the day Willie died. We know who was in there and who wasn’t.”

  “Yes. Well, I need to think it out a little more. But at least it’s a credible theory, don’t you agree?” She leaned forward, clearly back in snoop sisters mode, earlier resolutions to let the police handle it forgotten.

  “It has to be more than credible,” I said, knowing that I hadn’t been out of snoop sisters mode myself for even a minute since this whole thing started. “It has to be possible—or at least plausible. Wee Willie’s murder is like an Agatha Christie locked-room mystery. Like a game of Clue. Nobody could have gone in or out of the library that the surveillance camera didn’t catch.”

  “Nonsense,” she sputtered. “Of course they could have! Just because nobody has used any other way to get into the building for many years, doesn’t mean it’s impossible.”

  That was a surprise. “There’s another entrance?”

  “Sure. Windows. And an old boarded-up cellar door too.”

  “I’m sure the police have checked those,” I said. “Haven’t they?”

  “Yes. They have. I asked Dave about it and he says the police went around and checked all the windows on the first floor. Locked tight. Every single one.”

  “There’s a cellar door?”

  “Boarded up years ago.” Her voice was firm. “They checked it. Dave went with them. He said it’s completely covered by bushes out back. He’s positive no one has touched that old bulkhead in decades.”

  “The bushes out there are always so neatly trimmed,” I recalled. “I had no idea there even was a cellar door.”

  “I know,” she said. “The city does a beautiful job on the groundskeeping. Always has.”

  “Okay then.” I took a hefty sip of sherry. “How did Rob Oberlin get up into the stacks, kill Willie, and get out again without anyone seeing him?”

  “Hmmm.” She topped off both of our glasses. “Maybe we’ll have to leave that part up to the police. But I’m quite sure it could be done. How was your day?”

  I told her about our golf-cart ride through the Great Pumpkin Walk. “It was live on the morning news,” I said. “Did you see any of it?”

  “Sorry no. I had to take the long way around to get to the library without bumping into the Pumpkin Walk crowd,” she said, “so I left early. Sounds like fun though.”

  “Not as much fun as our other assignment. Marty and Francine and I covered a costumed pet show. It was so cute. They’ll be using clips from it right up until Halloween, so you’ll see it for sure. Adorable puppies and kitties. I was almost tempted to bring home a companion for O’Ryan.”

  The cat in question suddenly halted his fairly intensive whisker grooming project and with ears straight up, shook his head from side to side. “Mmrrapp,” he said, stuck his pink tongue out, and turned his back on us.

  “Good thing you resisted that temptation,” my aunt said.

  “I knew right away it wasn’t a good idea.” I hurried to cover up such a serious lapse in judgment. “We already have the best cat in Salem.” I watched O’Ryan’s ears. Still straight up. He was listening. I realized he’d forgiven me though when after a few seconds of sulking he faced us again and resumed work on those luxuriant whiskers. “Speaking of O’Ryan,” I continued, relieved, “I saw him today in kind of a mini-vision in Marty’s little compact mirror.”

  “What was he doing?” she asked.

  “Nothing, really,” I said. “At least not right then. All I saw of him in the compact was his eyes. Later on, in the ladies room mirror, I saw the whole cat.”

  “Was he doing anything t
hen?”

  “He was sitting on top of a trunk. An old-fashioned-looking one.” I described the metal bands, the big keyhole in the lock plate. “There was something familiar about it but I can’t quite place it. Ring any bells for you?”

  “It sounds a bit like the old trunk that was up in our attic for years. A nineteen-twenty-five Louis Vuitton. A fine piece of luggage. Your great-grandmother Forbes used it on her first trip to Europe.”

  I snapped my fingers. “Of course. I remember now. It burned up in the attic fire.” I shuddered slightly at the memory. The fire that had consumed much of the top floor of our house had very nearly taken Aunt Ibby and me and O’Ryan with it.

  “That’s right,” she said. “Some of the vintage clothes in that grand old trunk became the wardrobe you used when you were Crystal Moon.” So we’re back to costumes again.

  Explaining the connection between a vision-cat on a trunk, the costumes I’d once worn on the defunct Nightshades program, the many costumes the assorted players may have worn on long-gone kiddie shows, and the mystery of the death of one of those players was just too complicated. I didn’t even attempt it. Instead I returned to the more current question of how a killer could have entered the library, murdered Wee Willie Wallace with little or no noise, and left the building without calling attention to himself—or herself.

  “I keep thinking of possible ways for a person to enter and leave within the time frame the police have established,” I said. “We can see Willie climb the stairs to the stacks. A few others go up and come down. We know what time I found the—uh—found Willie.” I finished my sherry. “How can this be? Everybody who’d been in the stacks left the building somehow—except for Willie, of course.”

  My aunt didn’t answer right away, but looked at me thoughtfully. “This is not going to be an easy case to solve,” she declared. “Not one bit easy. But between us all—you and me and Pete and the Salem police department—I do believe we’ll figure it out.”

  O’Ryan, having finished the whisker grooming, was busily washing his underside. Pausing, he said, “Meeah.”

  “Yes, of course. You too,” my aunt said perfectly seriously.

  I stood and picked up my hobo bag. “I have a bag full of stuff I’ve been collecting. Time to go upstairs and try to make sense of it all. Thanks for the wine and for helping me remember where I’d seen the trunk before. Not that it makes any sense yet.” I walked around the counter and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Coming, O’Ryan?” He hunkered down in the captain’s chair and closed his eyes. Apparently, I hadn’t been entirely forgiven yet for that “companion cat” remark.

  I thought about Aunt Ibby’s new theory on my way upstairs. I didn’t find it credible that Rob Oberlin could have killed Wee Willie. I was more interested in learning that there was a cellar door behind the library. Dave had referred to it as a “bulkhead.” To me, that meant the same kind of cellar entrance we have. A slanted wooden trapdoor arrangement that leads to steps down to an actual cellar door. I used to use ours in the winter as a ski slope for my Barbies. The one at the library is so well disguised by tall, neatly trimmed hedges that I never even knew it was there. I was sure that Pete had already inspected it, inside and out. I arrived at the third floor even more confused than I’d been before I’d started up the stairs.

  I unlocked my kitchen door and clicked on the overhead light. Slinging the hobo bag over the back of a Lucite chair, I checked the contents of the refrigerator. Most of the plastic-wrapped portions of yesterday’s dinner still looked edible—except maybe the salad, which looked a little soggy. The cheesecake was blessedly intact. An appropriate adage came to mind. Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first. So, shamelessly, I did just that. There was part of a loaf of bread in the cabinet, so I made a sandwich from the slices of chicken, and the less wilted parts of the salad. I’d used paper plates, so cleanup was minimal.

  I spread the contents of the leather bag across the tabletop. Most of the relevant material—some relating to the upcoming anniversary celebration and some to the recent murder at the library, and some perhaps to both—was scribbled on index cards. There were a few brochures there too—a few pamphlets on riding lessons and organized trail rides from Rob’s stable along with some flyers I’d picked up at the pet store about adopting shelter pets.

  I’d begun sorting the index cards into piles. Jerry Mercury. Agnes Hooper. Rob Oberlin. Some overlapped and I had to create some new ones. Aunt Ibby’s theory about Oberlin killing Willie, for instance, and Dave’s description of the library cellar door (complete with a sketch of my impression of same). Another card gave the description of that Louis Vuitton trunk with more of my decidedly amateur artwork. I didn’t write anything about the vision. I didn’t need a card to remind myself of that one—or any of them—ever.

  I was about to start a pile of cards for Dave when O’Ryan came racing through the cat door. He ran straight for the house phone and sat, staring at it. Of course, it rang. How does he do that? Not too many people have that number. Caller ID said River North.

  “Hello. River?”

  “It’s me. Surprise! I’ve got the night off. Doan decided at the last minute to run a network Halloween special. Buck has to work doing lead-in and commercials so I’m free for the evening. You?”

  I looked at the array of cardboard and paper on the table and weighed my decision. Work on the anniversary program? Try to make sense out of the bits and pieces of information I had about the murder? Spend a little time with my best friend? O’Ryan had remained close to the phone, nodding his head in cat-approval.

  “Sure.” I said, “This is Pete’s old-timers’ hockey night. Want to come over?”

  “Absolutely. I’ve got a bottle of wine. You got food?”

  “Nope. We can order out,” I said. “You bringing the cards?”

  “Silly question. Of course. Looks like the pumpkin thing is about over. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  “Call me when you get here and I’ll run down and unlock the back door,” I said.

  I knew River wouldn’t be ready to go to sleep until the wee hours. I’d worked that midnight-to-three shift myself. It throws the biological clock completely off. This was going to require coffee. Not decaf—the real stuff. I loaded Mr. Coffee and cleared the table, carefully rubber-banding each stack of cards along with the brochures and stashing them in my top bureau drawer.

  River’s call came in less than twenty minutes. O’Ryan started down the twisty staircase ahead of me and beat it outside through the cat exit before I’d even finished the unlocking and unbolting routine. I waited until I heard her car pull into the driveway, then opened the door. O’Ryan was already waiting for her at the edge of the flagstone walk. He greeted her with the usual figure-eights around both ankles, and although I was too far away to hear it, I knew he was purring loudly.

  River’s spending-the-evening-with-a-girlfriend look was a lot different than her on-camera-glamorous-TV-STAR look. Scrubbed clean of makeup, River’s complexion is absolutely flawless. Her long black hair was pulled into a shiny ponytail and she wore a yellow-and-white-checked minidress with a pale green cardigan and white sneakers. The fans of Tarot Time would never have recognized her. With a black-and-white-checked Vans backpack dangling from one shoulder, she looked like a college kid heading for a late class. She hurried up the path with O’Ryan leading the way.

  “Great to have a night off,” she said, handing me a brown paper bag with the neck of a wine bottle sticking out of the top. “White zin. Want to order Chinese or pizza to go with it?”

  “Either one is fine with me. You may be drinking the wine alone though. I’ve already had a glass or two with my aunt.” I gave her a hug. “It’s so good to see you. Come on up.” I locked the door behind her and O’Ryan scampered ahead of us as we climbed the twisty staircase. We entered the living room and River did her usual routine of standing in the middle of the room, turning around slowly, checking the surroundings for the proper feng shui. Somet
imes she adjusts a picture or moves a plant but this time everything passed the inspection. “The plants in the bay window are glorious. They’re happy that you haven’t used drapes to block out the sun. Good healing energy.” She pointed to my most recent acquisition, a wonderful shabby-chic bentwood bench. “The old wooden bench in the east area of the room is perfect for balance. You’re getting good at this.”

  “Thanks,” I said, not mentioning that the east end of the room was the only place the bench seemed to fit. Just above it is a framed black-and-white photo of my mother and Aunt Ibby sitting on that same bench when they were teenagers. Those are a couple of my most prized possessions.

  River and I moved on down the hall to the kitchen. I put the wine in the refrigerator and River hung her backpack on a chair back. I picked up the house phone receiver. “Which’ll it be? Chinese or pizza?” O’Ryan leaned against River’s foot, gave her ankle a pink-tongued lick and a beseeching “mrow.”

  “Guess he votes for pizza. There’s no pepperoni on moo goo gai pan.” River doesn’t eat pepperoni and she’s learned to understand cat language very well. I texted the Pizza Pirate accordingly. Our large pizza—pepperoni on one side only and extra cheese all over—would arrive in twenty minutes. “I brought the cards,” she said. “You don’t usually ask for them so what’s up? Is anything wrong?” She’d already pulled the deck from her backpack and placed the Queen of Wands in the center of the table. That’s the card she always uses to represent me. The woman sits on a throne, has red hair and hazel eyes, and there’s a cat in the foreground. River motioned for me to sit opposite her. “Okay. What’s going on?”

  “I need to talk to you about a reading you’ve already done,” I told her. “It was the Wheel of Fortune one. It meant something to me. It was as if that reading was actually for me.”

  She put the deck face down on the table. “Tell me about it while we wait for the pizza guy.”